Nine

At three o'clock on the following afternoon, Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters unlatched the gate of Major Adams's house in Fitzherbert Avenue.

It was a blistering day, Thursday the twenty-fourth of August. Yet Masters, though he always feels the heat, was buttoned up in blue serge and wore his usual bowler hat. Just inside the gate he stopped short.

For an idyllic scene was in progress on the front lawn.

Sir Henry Merrivale, in a white short-sleeved shirt and white flannels, was engaged in playing clock-golf. Near him in a wicker chair sat a solid-looking young man of thirty-odd, smoking a pipe and making shorthand notes. Another chair was occupied by a fair-haired girl in a print frock, who had both hands pressed to her face as though to keep from exploding.

Thus far, pastoral ease merged into drowsiness. The lawn was of that smooth, shimmering green which seems to have lighter stripes in it. Against it shone the white clock-numerals and the little red metal flag which marked the cup. A low, gabled house, elm-shaded, rose against the green-blue haze of the Cotswolds beyond.

H.M.'s style with the putter was correct. Even his shirt and flannels were reasonably correct. But on his head he wore an encumbrance which made even Masters recoils. It was a broad-brimmed, high-crowned conical hat of loose-woven straw, of the sort that darkies in the Southern states of America are accustomed to put on their horses.

Then, too, there was the voice.

"I will now deal," said this voice, "with my first term away at school, and the many happy memories it brings back to me. I will tell how Digby Dukes and I changed round the organ-pipes in the chapel at St. Just's one Saturday night in the autumn of '81.

'This rearrangement was done with skill and care. No pipe was placed very far away from its original position, so that the rearrangement could not be detected by a casual glance. But the general effect, when the organist crashed into the opening bars of the first hymn on Sunday morning, had to be heard to be believed.

"Even then all might have been well if the organist, old Pop Grossbauer, had not lost his head and attempted to play the hymn through. The resultin' sounds, until the headmaster went up and dragged Pop gibberin' away from the organ, will be remembered at St. Just's as long as iron is strong or stone abides. I can liken it only to an interview between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini when each is under the impression that the other has stolen his watch."

The fair-haired girl pressed her hands still harder over her face, and began to rock back and forth.

The pipe-smoking young man preserved the gravity of a Spanish grandee as he continued to make notes.

" 'Stolen his watch…'?" he prompted, as H.M. paused. "Yes?"

H.M. pondered deeply before resuming.

And Chief Inspector Masters walked up the lawn, removing his hat.

"Ah, sir!" he said.

"So it's you," said H.M., breaking off and squinting round evilly over the putter.

"Yes, sir, it's me. And," said Masters grimly, "you don't need to tell me. I know. We're in it again. Another impossible situation. And you deliberately had me sent for."

"You sit down and be quiet," said H.M. sternly. "I've got another chapter to dictate before I can talk to you. Making..?"

He looked round inquiringly at the note-taker.

"About twenty-eight thousand words since breakfast-time," replied Courtney, taking the pipe out of his mouth. "Not counting the ten thousand last night."

"You hear, Masters?"

"But may I ask, sir, what in lum's name you're doing?"

"I'm dictatin' my reminiscences." "Your what?"

"My me-moirs," said H.M. accenting his version of the first syllable. "My autobiography.", Masters stood very still. Bland as a card-sharper, with his grizzled hair carefully brushed to hide the bald-spot, he stood in the strong sunshine like a man struck by certain apprehensions.

"Oh, ah? What you'd call your life story, eh?"

"That's it. Shrewd lad, Masters."

"I see. You — er — you haven't said anything about me in it, have you?"

"No, not yet," admitted H.M. He chortled. "But, oh, my eye, is it goin' to be juicy when I do!"

"I warn you, sir—!"

The young man interposed smoothly. "If I were you, Chief Inspector," he suggested, "I shouldn't trouble. We've done roughly forty-eight thousand words, and he's just into his eleventh year. If he's got anything against you, I should begin to worry about it round about next Christmas."

H.M. pointed with a putter.

"I got a suspicion," he said, "a very strong suspicion, that that blighter there is always on the edge of making smart cracks at me. But he's got a cast-iron face. I'm serious about this book. It's goin' to be an important social and political document. You." He leered round at Ann Browning. "Were you laughin' at me:

The girl took her hands away from her face.

"You know I wouldn't do that," she assured him, with such apparent sincerity that he subsided. "But Mr. Courtney's fingers must be numb by this time. Why don't you take a breather so that the chief inspector can tell you what he's come to tell you?"

Masters stiffened.

"Morning, miss," he said noncommittally, but with a significant glance at H.M. He looked at Courtney. "Morning, sir."

H.M. performed introductions.

"This gal," he added, "is Race's protegée. She's been given instructions to stick to me, so there's nothing you can do about it, son."

Masters regarded Ann with a quickening of interest.

"And is also (eh?) the young lady who was present at that business last night? Glad to hear it, miss! You're the only person concerned I haven't had a word with yet."

H.M. blinked.

"So? That's quick work, ain't it, Masters?"

"Four o'clock in the afternoon, sir. If you don't mind my pointing it out."

"Now, now. Less of the heavy copper stuff, son. What have you been up to?"

Masters inhaled a mighty breath.

"I've talked to Agnew, and read through his notes. I've had a word with Mrs. Fane, Captain Sharpless, Mr. Hubert Fane, Dr. Rich, the maid, and the cook. I've been carefully over that sitting room where the murder was done." "And?"

"You," suggested Masters pointedly, "tell me."

H.M. cast down the putter. He went to the porch and returned carrying two beach-chairs. These, after a struggle vaguely suggesting Laocoon, in which the chairs folded into shapes even more incomprehensible than is their usual custom, he managed to set straight for Masters and himself.

"It's like this," the chief inspector continued, — putting his hat down on the grass. "If only these people wouldn't be so ruddy pat with their stories! If only they wouldn't all swear they saw each other all the time! If only—" He stopped, remembering that he was speaking in front of one of them.

"It's perfectly true, though," Ann assured him.

Masters craned round. His tone grew confidential.

"Come, now, miss! Just among ourselves. How can you be so sure of that?"

"Because four of us then were sitting as close together as the four of us are here now. With Dr. Rich in the middle, like this."

Ann reached out after the putter, and stood it up in the middle to represent Rich.

"The bridge lamp was shining down directly on us. The table was at least twelve feet away—"

"Just twelve feet," said Masters. "I measured it."

"And the circle wasn't broken," concluded Ann. "The only one who ever went near the table was Arthur Fane himself."

"I say, Masters," interposed H.M., who was leaning back in the beach-chair and had his revolting hat tilted over his spectacles. "What's your notion of the suggestion that somebody sneaked in by way of the door or the windows?"

Masters hesitated.

"Go on, son! Speak up."

"Well, sir, I say I'm smacking well certain nobody did. It's not just that I take the word of the people in the room, though I can see what they tell me is reasonable enough. But — as regards the door — I've got an independent witness."

"A witness? Who?"

"Daisy Fenton, the maid."

Masters took out his notebook.

"Now, this girl Daisy had been curious, real hot-and-bothered curious, about what was being done that night. She knew there was some hypnotism game going on, but she didn't know what. Any girl would be curious, I expect. So, from the time that crowd went into the back sitting room after dinner to the time Mr. Fane was stabbed, Daisy never left the front hall."

"Wow!" said H.M.

Masters nodded grimly. "Just so, sir." "But-"

"Stop a bit, now. Daisy hung about the hall. A little later, she saw Mrs. Fane come out of the sitting room for that part where Mrs. Fane was asked to go out, like a guessing game.

''Daisy shied back into the dining-room door, where it was dark, and waited. She says Mrs. Fane listened at the door, which wasn't quite caught, until somebody closed it from inside. Then after a few minutes Dr. Rich opened it, and invited Mrs. Fane back in. All just as we've heard.

"Back went Daisy to her post in the hall. A little while after this, the front doorbell rang. It was a bookie named MacDonald, asking to see Mr. Hubert Fane. Daisy tried to send him away, but he wasn't having any. So down she went to the sitting room, and fetched out Mr. Hubert Fane."

Masters paused, clearing his throat.

The late afternoon sun blazed on his forehead. To

Courtney, the scene last night unfolded in vivid colors, even though he had not seen it.

"Mr. Hubert Fane came out, and spoke to the bookie on the front steps. They were arguing about something — Daisy could see 'em all the time — while Daisy remained where she was, in the hall, with one ear on the door."

H.M., who had been breathing as though in sleep under the hat, here opened one eye.

"Hold on, son! Wasn't she afraid old Hubert might get shirty if he saw her hangin' about obviously listening at door?"

Masters shook his head.

"No. She says she knew he wouldn't say anything to her. She says he never does. She says—" Masters' tone took on a note of heavy mimicry—"she says he's 'such a dear old gentleman.' "

"Uh-huh. Go on."

"Mr. Hubert Fane finished his talk with the bookie, and came back into the hall. He walked into the dining room, took a nip of brandy off the sideboard (as I'm told his habit is), walked straight back again to the sitting-room door, and opened it just about ten seconds after Mr. Arthur Fane was stabbed. In other words, he's got every bit as good an alibi as anybody in that room."

Masters shut up his notebook with a slap.

"But the important thing (eh?) is Daisy's testimony. She swears — and so help me, sir, I don't see any reason to doubt her — that nobody could have sneaked past her while she was there. And that's our witness. It washes out the door."

"Yes. I was afraid of that."

"Do you agree, Sir Henry, or don't you?"

H.M. groaned.

"All right, son. I agree. What about the windows?" "I gave those windows a good going-over. Under them there's a four-foot-wide flower-bed that was watered down late in the afternoon, and would show traces if you as much as breathed on it. The windows are eight feet up. They've got an unbroken coating of dust across the sills; thick dust. You know what the floor inside is like. The table was twelve feet from the windows. The curtains were drawn, and our witnesses swear they never moved. Lummy! Aside from having the windows locked and bolted on the inside, which they'd hardly be on an August night, I don't see how it could be more impossible for anybody to have got in. It washes out the windows as well."

"Yes," admitted H.M., "it does."

Philip Courtney found his wits whirling.

He had hoped that the night would bring good counsel, or at least some flaw in the evidence. But now the room seemed sealed up, as though with gummed paper, worse than ever.

"But the thing's impossible!" he said.

Masters turned slowly round and contemplated him. He had the air of a man who, though lost in a strange land, yet hears an old familiar tune.

"Ah," murmured the chief inspector. "Now where have I heard that before? Lummy, where have I heard it before? But look at Sir Henry there! It doesn't seem to bother him any."

H.M. had, indeed, a singularly peaceful air as he lay back in the chair. A fly circled round and settled down on the peak of his hat.

"The case," pursued Masters, "has got to be approached in a different way. It's all crazy and back-to-foremost to start with. We begin by knowing the murderer; but the murderer's the only person who can't be guilty. We—"

"Now, now, son!" urged H.M. soothingly.

But Masters was getting steam up.

"We've got to find someone who exchanged a real dagger for a rubber one, when the evidence proves nobody could have done it. It's no good saying, 'Where were you at such-and-such a time?' We know where they were. It's no good saying, 'How do you explain this bit of suspicious behavior?' Because there isn't any suspicious behavior. There's no behavior at all. Hypnotism! Rubber daggers! Urr!"

He drew his sleeve across his forehead.

"Now, Masters, you're gettin' yourself all hot…!"

"Yes, sir, I am; and I admit it. Who wouldn't be? If you can suggest any explanation of how those daggers could have been exchanged, I'd be glad to hear it. But, so far as I can see, there isn't any."

"Oh, my son! Of course there's an explanation!"

"An explanation that fits all the facts?"

"An explanation that fits all the facts."

"And you know it?"

"Sure. It's easy."

Masters got up from his chair, but sat down again. H.M. struggled up to a sitting position.

"No, son: I'm not just actin' the cryptic. I really am worried. I'm afraid that if I tell you this explanation you'll go harm' off on the wrong track."

"I can believe evidence, Sir Henry."

"Yes. I know. That's what worries me. See here." H.M. ruffled the tips of his fingers across his forehead. "For the sake of argument, do you believe the stories of these witnesses — Ann Browning, Captain Sharpless, Dr. Rich, Hubert Fane — that none of 'em went near the table at any time?"

"What else can I do? Unless the whole thing's a quadruple-put-up job, with everybody lying, what else can I do? I'm bound to accept it."

"All right. Do you also believe that nobody could have got in from outside?"

"Ah! That I do, and I don't mind admitting it."

H.M. looked distressed.

"So. Then, according to the evidence, there's only one explanation that can be true. It's been an odd blind spot that nobody seems to have noticed before."

"If you mean," retorted Masters, regarding him with broad and fishy skepticism, "that Mr. Arthur Fane exchanged the daggers himself… well, I'll just say ha-ha and let it go at that. Mr. Fane knew he was going to be stabbed with that dagger. He insisted on it. He had a spot drawn over his heart so it couldn't be missed. Don't tell me any man plans suicide in quite that way. But Mr. Fane was the only person who did go near that table."

H.M. sighed.

"Got it," he said.

"Got what?"

"The blind spot. Burn me, we've been repeatin' the story about nobody goin' near the table so often that it's stopped having any meaning.

"We're forgetting that there was somebody who admittedly did go near the table. Not only near it; but to it, in plain sight. Somebody who stood with her back to the witnesses so that her body shielded the table in a darkish part of the room. Somebody who wore a full-sleeved dress tight at the wrists. Somebody who could, therefore, have slipped the real dagger out of her sleeve, and the rubber dagger back in its place, as quick as winking."

H.M. looked still more glum and angry.

"In short," he concluded, "Mrs. Fane herself."

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